Are you really wealthy or is it just ‘Affluenza’?

Virtually all high consumption households are not actually wealthy. That means almost all of the middle and working classes and a big portion of the so-called upper class too. Debts, nice homes, cars, credit cards, home equity loans, and the mainly inadequate retirement nest eggs

(Those looking to retire in the next year in Australia are on average, 45% UNDER-funded. Similar for the UK and in America its worse). Let’s call them High-Consumptors instead.

They have the 'appearance' of wealth in the physical things they own via debt. Thats all.

Over 90% of working households have less than 3 weeks of liquidable finances to keep it all going ( survey by life company TAL) if wage/salary income was to cease. Professionals, self-employed, workers, tradies, it’s the same. They may seem wealthy from the outside looking in, but in reality they are not.

In this and the next 3 articles we look at:

1. What being wealthy really is,

2. How to get it easily with low risk,

3. Where this is different to 90% of those you see every day.

Being poor also sucks! This is the opposite of being a High-Consumptor. You can have time, friends and freedom, but not having decent amounts of cash to go with it removes any notion of contentment or enduring satisfaction and happiness. Stress, worry and depression are worse outcomes.

High-Consumptors however must work at the expense of nearly everything else in life, and often they also find the work they do unfulfilling. To keep the ‘Hamster Wheel turning’ and the bills paid they tell themselves. Really however it’s to gain immediate gratification, to remain in a perpetual state of distraction, and show others they are successful.

Pleasure versus Gratification. Biologically speaking there are two drivers to happiness in the brain; Pleasures and Gratifications. Pleasures are like sugar and drug highs; a great feeling but quickly ebbs and another ‘hit’ that’s at least as big is required infinitum. Think a new car, a home addition, a holiday to the latest hotel/destination, the latest tech gizmo. Gratifications are quiet slow-burn feelings, usually requiring little money and often are low-key pursuits. A hobby or playing with kids where time just disappeared are examples. There is no ‘look at me’ factor in a gratification.

I the early 50’s New York advertising firms discovered this. They also learnt it’s hard to sell stuff that’s strong on gratification and low on Pleasure. Much of the world’s consumptive behaviour emanates from this city 65 years ago. Mad Men, the TV series, exemplifies all this. Count how many ‘pleasures’ versus ‘gratifications’ in an episode.

Real Wealth = Financial Muscle; in the form of ‘non-personal exertion income’ supporting a sustainable mix of pleasures and gratifications. To provide security and health. To enable a heathy mix of work, family, friends, community and for one’s-self. To have enough for unforeseen events, to navigate an increasingly faster-paced and uncertain world. To live well once income from work reduces or ceases.

For each of us the mix and the detail differ. For the High-Consumptors, they must first detox from an over-consumption of pleasures in order to see things in perspective, lest one mistakes pleasures for what really matters. Power isn’t real wealth.

There is a middle ground between poor and over consumption, and this is the key to obtaining real wealth.